Part 43 (2/2)

He had an errand at Mrs. Wilson's on Shrove Tuesday, and she invited him to accompany her to midnight service at the Church of the Nativity.

When he repeated the request to Father Frontford, he was given permission to go.

”It is an unusual, and even an extraordinary request,” the Superior said; ”but Mrs. Wilson is so deeply interested in the welfare of the brotherhood that it is better to make a concession. What time are you to meet her?”

”She is to send her carriage for me at half past eleven. She was so sure that you would not object that she told me not to send any word.”

”It is not well to have her treat so great a departure from rules as a matter of course,” the Father answered gravely. ”I will send her a note which will show her this. You have permission not to retire at the usual hour.”

The carnival season was celebrated at the Clergy House with a meal better than usual, and with some gayety on the part of the young deacons. The light-hearted Southerner improved to the full the permission to talk at dinner, and chatted away with a volubility which seemed to Maurice to indicate a nature too buoyant or too shallow to be deeply stirred. Father Frontford was absent, and there was nothing to throw a shadow of restraint over the feast, the other priests being almost as boyish as the deacons.

”Here's Wynne,” the Southerner said laughing, ”is as glum as if he were Lent incarnate, come six hours too soon. You must have a good deal on your conscience to be so solemn.”

Maurice smiled, trying to shake off his depression.

”It isn't always what is on one's conscience,” he retorted, ”so much as how tender the conscience is.”

”Good! He has you there, Ballentyne,” one of the deacons cried.

”Oh, not at all. If a conscience is tender, it must be because it is harrowed up. Now Wynne has probably vexed his so that it is habitually sore.”

Maurice was out of the mood of the company, but he tried to answer with a light word. The jesting seemed to him trifling; and his companions, compared to the men he had seen during his stay with Mrs. Staggchase, appeared like boys chattering at boarding-school. He wondered where they had been for their absence; then he remembered that they had all told him, and that he had forgotten. He had had no real interest in them after all, he reflected; and at the thought he reproached himself with egotism and a lack of brotherliness. He glanced at Ashe, and was struck by the paleness of his friend. His look was perhaps followed by Ballentyne, for the latter commented on the downcast aspect of Philip.

”Ashe,” the young man said, ”looks ten times more doleful than Wynne.

What have you fellows been doing? One would think that you had been eating the bitterest of all the apples of Sodom.”

”They have been in the gay world,” another rejoined.

”Then they might be set up as a warning against it,” was the retort.

Laughter that one cannot share is more nauseous than sweets to the sick; and this harmless trifling was intolerable to Maurice. He got away from it as soon as it was possible, and pa.s.sed the heavy hours in his chamber, waiting for the coming of the carriage. He tried at first to read and then to pray; but in the end he abandoned himself to bitter reverie.

He did not attempt to reason, he merely gave way to gloomy retrospect, without sequence or order. Seen in the light of his experiences during the past weeks, his life looked poor, and dull, and misdirected. It was little comfort to a.s.sert that he had at least been true to ideals high, no matter how mistaken.

”It is not what one does,” he thought, ”but the intention with which he does it. Only that does not excuse one for being stupid, and raw, and ignorant. When a man is a weakling and a fool, he always takes refuge in the excuse that he is at least fine in his intentions. Bah! No wonder she laughed at me! I have shut myself up with ideas as mouldy as a mediaeval skeleton, and when I come to daylight all that I can say is that I meant well. I suppose an idiot means well from his point of view!”

He looked about for something which should divert him from thoughts so tormenting. His eye fell upon his Bible, and he took it up half mechanically. On the t.i.tle page was written the name of his aunt, to whom it had once belonged. The name brought back the interview with Father Frontford, and the refusal of his request for leave of absence.

”Nothing belongs to me,” he said to himself. ”I am a thing, a sort of thing like a numbered prisoner. How could she care for a chattel, a creature without even ident.i.ty! I will go down to Montfield. I am not yet so completely out of the world that I can't have a word in the disposition of my own property.”

He threw himself on the bed and tried to sleep, but sleep was impossible. He only thought the more hotly and wildly. The hours stretched on and on interminably before he heard the bell ring, and knew that the carriage had come. Rising hastily, he adjusted his ca.s.sock and his tumbled hair, and went down.

”Perhaps I may find peace at the ma.s.s,” he sighed with a great wistfulness.

The fresh, cool air of night was grateful, and as he was driven along the quiet streets, a new hopefulness came to him. He had supposed that he was to be taken to Mrs. Wilson's, and when the carriage stopped was surprised to find himself before a large building which he did not recognize.

”But I was to meet Mrs. Wilson,” he said doubtfully to the footman who opened the carriage door.

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